


even demons deserve to cry

by rangerhitomi



Series: radical dreamers [21]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Canon Related, Gen, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s), Possibly Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-21
Updated: 2017-10-21
Packaged: 2019-01-20 14:50:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12435093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rangerhitomi/pseuds/rangerhitomi
Summary: Some days, he stands next to the throne, looking over the empty chamber, but never sits. Some days, he disappears and when he comes back, he doesn’t say where he’s been. Most days, he doesn’t speak to anyone except in clipped sentences or curt orders.He misses Nasch and Merag terribly, this much is apparent. But not once in all these years has he shed a tear, not that any of the others have seen, and Vector begins to joke that Lord Durbe hasn’t a tear duct at all.





	even demons deserve to cry

**Author's Note:**

> request box prompt: In all the time anyone has known him, Durbe has never, ever cried, to the point they seriously think he just doesn’t have tear ducts. Someone finds him sobbing.
> 
> (request box at curiouscat (dot) rangerhitomi)

Some days, he stands on the balcony for eons—it’s impossible to tell how long in this place—and stares at the raging sky, the churning sea, the glassy beach, and his eyes hold no emotion. Some days, he stands next to the throne, looking over the empty chamber, but never sits. Some days, he disappears and when he comes back, he doesn’t say where he’s been. Most days, he doesn’t speak to anyone except in clipped sentences or curt orders.

He misses Nasch and Merag terribly, this much is apparent. But not once in all these years has he shed a tear, not that any of the others have seen, and Vector begins to joke that Lord Durbe hasn’t a tear duct at all.

Not that Durbe is the only one who hasn’t cried. Vector showed no emotion when their leaders disappeared, though Alit and Gilag teared up once or twice. Even Mizael had once felt the sting of tears but forced them away. But Durbe was closest to Nasch than anyone but Merag, in fact closer to Nasch than any of the others were to one another, and this prompted more jokes from Vector that would have caused Mizael to punch him in the face had they been directed at him.

But Durbe never cries. He never sheds a tear. There are flashes of anger, annoyance, and conflict, but never amusement, never contentment, never tears.

“They have a term for his expression on Earth,” Vector says one day, propping himself up on his elbows while lying on the throne stairs on his stomach.

Mizael briefly wonders how he ended up stuck in the same room as Vector, alone, and is faced with the realization that Vector knew he would come to the throne chamber to look for Durbe and went out of his way to piss Mizael off. “I don’t care.”

“It’s called _resting bitch face_ ,” Vector continues, kicking his feet in the air behind him. “It’s like, a lot of humans’ default expression. It makes people think they’re cold and unapproachable.”

“I don’t care.”

“Of course not.” Vector sits up and stretches. “Human you would have it too, I bet. I mean, Barian you sure does.”

“Where’s Durbe?” Mizael asks tonelessly.

Vector sighs dramatically and leans back on the stairs. “Probably outside moping over Nasch again… or is it still?”

He keeps talking but Mizael ignores him and heads for the balcony. It’s the second most common place for Durbe to be nowadays, and sure enough, he’s standing stiff as a board and staring unseeingly over the sea.

Neither talks. Mizael’s not sure Durbe is even completely aware that he’s there; he hasn’t so much as twitched. As the silence stretches, Mizael wonders, not for the first time, what Durbe could possibly be thinking about that would occupy so much of his thoughts.

Finally, he can’t stand it anymore. “Vector is talking about the human world. Observations.”

“On my orders,” Durbe says quietly.

“Any particular reason why?”

“I wanted him away from me.”

Mizael snorts, but as Durbe turns his head, the amusement passes. Durbe is completely serious, he realizes. “Wouldn’t you think Alit or Gilag more suited to the task of observing humans?”

Durbe sighs. “Eventually.”

Mizael waits for clarification but none comes. Durbe continues to stare at the stormy sky with that same hollow look he’d been unable to cast off since Nasch and Merag’s disappearance. Cold. Unapproachable.

_Well,_ he thinks, _even Vector was bound to be right about_ something _._

“It’s been years,” he ventures.

Durbe remains silent.

“Durbe, I don’t think he’s coming back.”

Without looking at Mizael, Durbe walks away and disappears into a portal.

* * *

 

The war against the Astral World is going terribly.

Ever since Vector coerced Durbe into going to Earth to look for Nasch, Durbe’s blank expression has been permanently replaced by something like bitterness, or maybe barely contained anger, and rather than stand unmoving on the balcony, he’s taken to pacing the throne chamber. He’s as unapproachable as before, or maybe more so; _he_ is the leader, and their constant failures are, to him, his responsibility.

Durbe isn’t the only one who lost his legendary card to Yuma Tsukumo and Astral. Vector, Alit, Gilag, and even Mizael were unable to secure theirs. Worse, their cards came with some kind of vision of them as humans in some kind of past life. As far as Mizael could tell, all of their supposed human lives had ended in some kind of horrible death.

“You don’t believe this nonsense about us being humans, do you?” he asks as they look out under a clear blue sky over the city.

“Of course not,” Durbe replies unconvincingly. He’s been more out of sorts than usual since going to the ruins in the middle of the ocean. He pushes his glasses up to the bridge of his nose and crosses his arms. His human form looks so young and fragile, but his cold, unapproachable expression remains firmly intact. “It’s some kind of trick.”

Mizael looks over at him. He hesitates before pressing for the information Durbe refused to share when he returned from either of his trips to the human world. “How did you die?”

“I didn’t,” Durbe replies icily.

“Your false self, I mean. The vision.”

Durbe’s arms tighten across his body. His eyes squeeze shut. “Stabbed.”

They both stand in silence until the sun sets.

* * *

 

Vector is missing, a situation that concerns Mizael, and he searches for Durbe in all the usual places so they can figure out what to do. Nothing good can come out of Vector plotting behind their backs again and Mizael has a reasonable argument laid out in favor of convincing Durbe to let him just kill Vector this time. But Durbe isn’t in the throne chamber. He’s not on the balcony. He isn’t in his chambers, or on the beach, or anywhere in the crystal palace that Mizael can find.

Mizael shifts to the one place in the human world he has been together with Durbe—the rooftop overlooking the city—but Durbe is not there, either.

There’s one place on the Earth he might be, and Mizael doesn’t want to go there. He doesn’t have a choice.

The jungle is a cacophony of birds screeching and insects buzzing; the air is thick and wet, and Mizael grimaces at the heat. He pushes through the trees and blasts four snakes out of his way before he reaches the opening of an ancient stone pyramid, overgrown with vines and moss, weathered by centuries of hot, heavy rainfalls and scorching sunlight. The closer he gets to the ruins, the quieter it seems to become, until he has stepped into the dark, musty entrance and he feels as though he is encased in a tomb.

A place like this he expects to be laden with traps, but he walks through the halls unopposed; there’s total silence except his own footsteps and strangely calm breathing as he meanders through twisting hallways and cavernous rooms, feet carrying him purposefully toward one tunnel or another as he reaches forks in the halls.

He reaches one final door, and beyond it, hears a soft sound, like someone gasping for air.

It’s Durbe.

Across the room, he sits in a stone chair that might, once, have been a kind of throne. But Durbe seems too small for it, hunched over with his hands over his face, shoulders heaving and glasses lying abandoned at his feet.

It takes Mizael a few seconds to realize that the soft gasps are the sound of Durbe sobbing.

“Durbe?” His voice echoes like a clap of thunder through the room, though he only barely whispered. Durbe’s head snaps up; he inhales sharply and his entire body seizes up.

“M—Mizael?” He squints across the room and wipes his face on the sleeve of his shirt. “What—”

Mizael walks toward him. He thinks about mentioning Vector, but changes his mind. There's clearly something much more pressing concerning Durbe. “The others always joked that you couldn’t cry.”

A shuddering breath. “Even demons can cry.”

“You’re not.”

Durbe shakes his head. “I found Nasch. And Merag.”

When Vector had suggested that they were on Earth, Mizael had scoffed at the idea. Durbe had hope. He always had hope that Nasch would come back. But something was wrong with Durbe, clearly, and it had to do with Nasch. It couldn’t have been so simple as Durbe finding him and the Barian Emperors reuniting. “Where are they?”

Durbe opened his mouth but no noise came out but a hiccup.

“Are they…” He let the question hang.

Another shake of the head.

“Then what?”

“The Kamishiro twins,” Durbe whispers, and Mizael freezes.

Rio and Ryoga Kamishiro… two children who fought the Barians alongside Astral and Yuma Tsukumo. There was no way they could possibly be the Barians’ missing leaders. No way. None…

“How certain—”

“Completely.” Durbe covers his face again. “I saw everything. _Remembered_ everything. I—I was a knight. Back then. Nasch and Merag and I… we were friends. Vector invaded. Merag died.” His voice quivers and there’s a hollow pit in the bottom of Mizael’s stomach. “Nasch and I…” He trails off, face taking on color, and for the first time ever, Mizael sees Lord Durbe embarrassed. Neither can stand to look at the other any longer, so Durbe talks to the floor and Mizael stares unblinking at the wall. “We fought Vector together but everyone… everyone died… except me…” He bends over again, clutching at his chest as grief wracks his body.

Mizael allows Durbe the time to cry, until Durbe slumps with a final shuddering breath into the corner of the chair. He stares at the wall, his face red and glistening, his nose dripping. He’s a disaster, Mizael notes, probably worse for the fact that he has never let himself cry before now and doesn’t know how to stop.

Too much time has passed now. “Durbe, if you know that they are… _them_ … why not get them?”

Durbe lifts his head with some apparent effort and gives Mizael a pitiful, reluctant look. “Ryoga and Rio Kamishiro have their own lives. Their own friends. Their own memories. And now I have to—to tell them that their fate isn’t to fight with their friends, but to return to us, to lead us. Their enemy.” He rests his head against the chair again. “How would you feel if you discovered you were supposed to fight with the Astral World all along?”

Mizael can’t begin to imagine. But he has no threshold to measure. Ryoga and Rio Kamishiro would remember all three of their lives, whereas Mizael remembers only two. “You were his friend. In two of his lives, much longer than the Kamishiro twins have been friends with Astral and Yuma. You can convince him—”

“His friend.” Durbe’s mouth quivers. “I _was_ his friend. Yuma and Astral _are_ his friends. This is his life, and I have to take it from him.”

“We need him, and Merag,” Mizael says hollowly. “We can’t win this without them.”

It takes a long time for Durbe to respond. He simply sits in the chair, knees pulled up to his chest the way a child might to comfort itself. Finally he wipes his face on the back of a hand and places it over his chest, clenching his scarf. “I wish I didn’t have those memories of us from our life before,” he whispers. He closes his eyes and an odd look crosses his face; half pained, half reminiscent. “He’ll never love me the same way again.”


End file.
